Unit 2 History of shipping 2.1. History of navigation In the pre-modern history of human migration and discovery of new lands by navigating the oceans, a few peoples have excelled as sea-faring explorers. Prominent examples are the Phoenicians, the ancient Greeks, the Persians, the Arabians, the Norse, the Austronesian peoples including the Malays, and the Polynesians and the Micronesians of the Pacific Ocean. Maritime history is the study of human activity at sea. It covers a broad thematic element of history that often uses a global approach, although national and regional histories remain predominant. As an academic subject, it often crosses the boundaries of standard disciplines, focusing on understanding humankind's various relationships to the oceans, seas, and major waterways of the globe. Nautical history records and interprets past events involving ships, shipping, navigation, and seafarers. Maritime history is a broad subject that includes fishing, whaling, international maritime law, naval history, the history of ships, ship design, shipbuilding, the history of navigation, the history of the various maritime-related sciences (oceanography, cartography, hydrography, etc.), sea exploration, maritime economics and trade, shipping, yachting, seaside resorts, the history of lighthouses and aids to navigation, maritime themes in literature, maritime themes in art, the social history of sailors and passengers and sea-related communities. Typically, studies of merchant shipping and of defensive navies are seen as separate
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Unit 2 History of shipping
2.1. History of navigation
In the pre-modern history of human migration and discovery of new lands by navigating the
oceans, a few peoples have excelled as sea-faring explorers. Prominent examples are the
Phoenicians, the ancient Greeks, the Persians, the Arabians, the Norse, the Austronesian peoples
including the Malays, and the Polynesians and the Micronesians of the Pacific Ocean.
Maritime history is the study of human activity at sea. It covers a broad thematic element
of history that often uses a global approach, although national and regional histories remain
predominant. As an academic subject, it often crosses the boundaries of standard disciplines,
focusing on understanding humankind's various relationships to the oceans, seas, and major
waterways of the globe. Nautical history records and interprets past events involving ships,
shipping, navigation, and seafarers.
Maritime history is a broad subject that includes fishing, whaling, international maritime
law, naval history, the history of ships, ship design, shipbuilding, the history of navigation, the
history of the various maritime-related sciences (oceanography, cartography, hydrography, etc.), sea
exploration, maritime economics and trade, shipping, yachting, seaside resorts, the history of
lighthouses and aids to navigation, maritime themes in literature, maritime themes in art, the social
history of sailors and passengers and sea-related communities. Typically, studies of merchant
shipping and of defensive navies are seen as separate fields. Similarly studies of inland waterways
are usually seen as not appropriately included within 'maritime history.'
A dominant approach to maritime history writing has been nicknamed 'rivet counting' because of a
focus on the minutiae of the vessel. But revisionist scholars are creating new turns in the study of
maritime history. This includes a post-1980s turn towards the study of human users of ships (which
involves sociology, cultural geography, gender studies and narrative studies); and post-2000 turn
towards seeing sea travel as part of the wider history of transport and mobilities. This move is
emerging from the International Association for the History of Transport, Traffic and Mobilities.
2.1.1. Antiquity
In ancient maritime history, the first boats are presumed to have been dugout canoes,
developed independently by various Stone Age populations, and used for coastal fishing and travel.
The Indigenous of the Pacific Northwest are very skilled at crafting wood. Best known for totem
Greece through the strait of Gibraltar to Western Europe and the British Isles. [12] Pytheas is the first
known person to describe the Midnight Sun,[13] polar ice, Germanic tribes and possibly Stonehenge.
Pytheas also introduced the idea of distant "Thule" to the geographic imagination and his account is
the earliest to state that the moon is the cause of the tides.
Nearchos’s celebrated voyage from India to Susa after Alexander's expedition in India is
preserved in Arrian's account, the Indica. Greek navigator Eudoxus of Cyzicus explored the Arabian
Sea for Ptolemy VIII, king of the Hellenistic Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt. According to
Poseidonius, later reported in Strabo's Geography, the monsoon wind system of the Indian Ocean
was first sailed by Eudoxus of Cyzicus in 118 or 116 BC.[14]
Nautical charts and textual descriptions known as sailing directions have been in use in one
form or another since the sixth century BC.[15] Nautical charts using stereographic and orthographic
projections date back to the second century BC.[15]
Phoenicia and Carthage
The Phoenicians and their successors, the Carthaginians, were particularly adept sailors and
learned to voyage further and further away from the coast in order to reach destinations faster. One
tool that helped them was the sounding weight. This tool was bell shaped, made from stone or lead,
with tallow inside attached to a very long rope. When out to sea, sailors could lower the sounding
weight in order to determine how deep the waters were, and therefore estimate how far they were
from land. Also, the tallow picked up sediments from the bottom which expert sailors could
examine to determine exactly where they were. The Carthaginian Hanno the Navigator is known to
have sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar c. 500 BC and explored the Atlantic coast of Africa.
There is general consensus that the expedition reached at least as far as Senegal.[16] There is a lack
of agreement whether the furthest limit of Hanno's explorations was Mount Cameroon, or Guinea's
890-metre (2910-foot) Mount Kakulima.[17]
Asia
In the South China Sea and Indian Ocean, a navigator could take advantage of the fairly
constant monsoon winds to judge direction.[18] This made long one-way voyages possible twice a
year.[18]
13 The theoretical existence of a Frigid Zone where the nights are very short in summer and the sun does not set at the summer solstice was already known. Similarly reports of a country of perpetual snows and darkness (the country of the Hyperboreans) had been reaching the Mediterranean for some centuries. Pytheas is the first known scientific visitor and reporter of the arctic.14 Strabo's Geography - Book II Chapter 3, Lacus Curtius15 Bowditch, 2003:216 Donald Harden, The Phoenicians, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, page 16817 B.H. Warmington, op. cit., page 7918 Chisholm, 1911:284.
The earliest known reference to an organization devoted to ships in ancient India is to the
Mauryan Empire from the 4th century BCE. The Arthashastra of Emperor Chandragupta Maurya's
Prime Minister, Kautilya, devotes a full chapter on the state department of waterways under a
navadhyaksha (Sanskrit for "superintendent of ships"). The term, nava dvipantaragamanam
(Sanskrit for sailing to other lands by ships) appears in this book in addition to appearing in the
Buddhist text Baudhayana Dharmasastra.
As early as in the Neolithic Age about 7,000 years ago, the ancestors of Chinese people
were already able to conduct sea voyages with their primitive floating tools - canoes and rafts and
rough navigation knowledge, which shows that China, alongside those Mediterranean countries, is
the cradle of global maritime culture. With the availability of wooden boats and sails during the Xia
(21-16th century BC), Shang (16-11th century BC), and Zhou (11th century-256BC) dynasties, the
ancient people started their voyages to today's Korea peninsula and Japanese islands.
By the Spring and Autumn Period (770-446BC) and the Warring States Period (475-
221BC), when ancient navigation was formed, people had already accumulated some knowledge on
aspects such as astronomical direction, geographical positioning, and oceanic climate. With the
formation of necessary navigation skills and knowledge, maritime transportation and warfare of a
relatively large scale emerged. By the time of the Qin (221-206BC) and Han (206BC-220AD)
dynasties, large sea boats had taken the place of wooden sailboats and people were gradually
mastering how to sail with the help of wind, thus giving rise to Xu Fu's expedition to Japan during
the Qin Dynasty as well as his voyage to the Indian Ocean during the Western Han Dynasty
(206BC-24AD). During the Three Kingdoms Period (220-280), fleets from the Wu State reached
Taiwan and the South Sea, while Fa Xian of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317-420) returned from India
by sea. By the Northern Dynasty (386-581), Chinese fleets had gone as far as the Persian Gulf.
During the Tang Dynasty (618-907), the whole society took on a prosperous scene, with a
well-developed economy and a highly civilized culture after the "Gold Years of Zhenguan." Based
on a strong national power and advanced shipbuilding technologies, especially the introduction of
watertight cabins, China developed maritime navigations with countries in West Asia and coastal
countries in Africa. Also, by this time, Arab and African countries could already be directly reached
through straight-line navigation instead of the original section (or localized) navigation.
2.1.2. Medieval age of navigation
The Arab Empire significantly contributed to navigation, and had trade networks extending
from the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Indian Ocean and China Sea in
the east,[19] Apart from the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, navigable rivers in the Islamic regions were 19 Subhi Y. Labib (1969), "Capitalism in Medieval Islam", The Journal of Economic History 29 (1), p. 79-96.
uncommon, so transport by sea was very important. Islamic geography and navigational sciences
made use of a magnetic compass and a rudimentary instrument known as a kamal, used for celestial
navigation and for measuring the altitudes and latitudes of the stars. The kamal itself was
rudimentary and simple to construct. It was simply a rectangular piece of either bone or wood
which had a string with 9 consecutive knots attached to it. Another instrument available, developed
by the Arabs as well, was the quadrant. Also a celestial navigation device, it was originally
developed for astronomy and later transitioned to navigation.[20] When combined with detailed maps
of the period, sailors were able to sail across oceans rather than skirt along the coast. According to
the political scientist Hobson, the origins of the caravel ship, used for long-distance travel by the
Spanish and Portuguese since the 15th century, date back to the qarib used by Andalusian explorers
by the 13th century.[21]
The sea lanes between India and neighboring lands were the usual form of trade for many
centuries, and are responsible for the widespread influence of Indian culture to the societies of
Southeast Asia. Powerful navies included those of the Maurya, Satavahana, Chola, Vijayanagara,
Kalinga, Maratha and Mughal Empire.
In China between 1040 and 1117, the magnetic compass was being developed and applied to
navigation.[22] This let masters continue sailing a course when the weather limited visibility of the
sky. The true mariner's compass using a pivoting needle in a dry box was invented in Europe no
later than 1300.[18][23]
As a result of the wide use of marine compasses, and the application of seafaring
knowledge, such as celestial navigation technology and monsoon predictions, plus the development
in shipbuilding, especially the employment of watertight cabins, navigators of the Song Dynasty
(960-1279) could carry out sea voyages all year round. The Song navigators blazed a trail in starting
from Guangzhou of South China's Guangdong Province and Quanzhou of East China's Fujian
Province , then crossing the northern Indian Ocean, and finally reaching Western Asia and Eastern
Africa, with the route being of particular importance.
20 ThinkQuest: Library, “Early Navigational Instruments,” http://library.thinkquest.org/C004706/contents/1stsea/nap/page/n-2.html#21 John M. Hobson (2004), The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation, p. 141, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-54724-5.22 Li Shu-hua, “Origine de la Boussole 11. Aimant et Boussole,” Isis, Vol. 45, No. 2. (Jul., 1954), p.18123 Frederic C. Lane, “The Economic Meaning of the Invention of the Compass,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 68, No. 3. (Apr., 1963), p.615ff.
A seaboat of the Southern Song Dynasty, which was excavated in Quanzhou has 13 watertight cabins.
A conspicuous characteristic of China's navigation in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) was
the important position of grain transport, which was meant to solve the grain shortage in the capital
- Dadu (Beijing ) -- and the surrounding areas.
In terms of oceangoing voyages, the Yuan Dynasty surpassed both the Tang and Song
dynasties, whether in the scale of the shipbuilding and navigation technologies. The large
oceangoing vessels of that time could hold over 1,000 people, and was equipped with dozens of
sails. Also at that time, Arabic astronomical navigation techniques were introduced to China,
greatly promoting the development of China's navigation technology.
Due to the then positive policy on maritime trade and the great breakthrough in navigation
technologies, China took the lead to enter the period of "quantitative navigation." Chinese sailboats
reached almost all the seacoasts of the western Pacific and northern Indian oceans, establishing
trade relations with 120 countries and regions.
The development of oceangoing navigation in the Yuan Dynasty resulted in a boom of
domestic ports, especially the Quanzhou Port, which experienced its most glorious time in history.
It was not only the most important port for foreign trade and the first port in the East, but also was
the most wellknown port at that time in the world.
Wang Dayuan, a great folk navigator of the Yuan Dynasty, twice sailed from Quanzhou
between 1333-1390 for oceangoing voyages, reaching as far as the Arabian Peninsula and coastal
areas in East Africa. Upon returning, he compiled Dayi Zhilue for his voyages, covering 96
countries and regions.
Nautical charts called portolan charts began to appear in Italy at the end of the 13th century.[24] However, their use did not seem to spread quickly: there are no reports of the use of a nautical
chart on an English vessel until 1489.[24]
Various ships were in use during the Middle Ages. The longship was a type of ship that
was developed over a period of centuries and perfected by its most famous user, the Vikings, in
approximately the 9th century. The ships were clinker-built, utilizing overlapping wooden strakes.
The knaar, a relative of the longship, was a type of cargo vessel. It differed from the longship in
that it was larger and relied solely on its square rigged sail for propulsion. The cog was a design
which is believed to have evolved from (or at least been influenced by) the longship, and was in
wide use by the 12th century. It too used the clinker method of construction. The caravel was a ship
Álvares Cabral, Yermak, Juan Ponce de León, Francisco Coronado, Juan Sebastián Elcano,
Bartolomeu Dias, Ferdinand Magellan, Willem Barentsz, Abel Tasman, Jean Alfonse, Samuel de
Champlain, Willem Jansz, Captain James Cook, Henry Hudson, and Giovanni da Verrazzano.
Peter Martyr d'Anghiera was an Italian-born historian of Spain and of the discoveries of her
representatives during the Age of Exploration. He wrote the first accounts of explorations in Central
and South America in a series of letters and reports, grouped in the original Latin publications of
1511-1530 into sets of ten chapters called "decades." His Decades are thus of great value in the
history of geography and discovery. His De Orbe Novo (published 1530; "On the New World")
describes the first contacts of Europeans and native Americans and contains, for example, the first
European reference to India rubber.
The commercial activities of Portugal in the early 15th century marked an epoch of distinct
progress in practical navigation.[18] These trade expeditions sent out by Henry the Navigator led first
to the discovery of the Porto Santo (near Madeira) in 1418, rediscovery of the Azores in 1427, the
discovery of the Cape Verde Islands in 1447 and Sierra Leone in 1462.[25] Henry worked to
systemize the practice of navigation.[18] In order to develop more accurate tables on the sun's
declination, he established an observatory at Sagres. Combined with the empirical observations
gathered in oceanic seafaring, mapping winds and currents, Portuguese explorers took the lead in
the long distance oceanic navigation.[26]
Henry's successor, John II continued this research, forming a committee on navigation. [18]
This group computed tables of the sun's declination and improved the mariner's astrolabe, believing
it a good replacement for the cross-staff.[18] These resources improved the ability of a navigator at
sea to judge his latitude.[18]
In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spain was in the vanguard of European global exploration
and colonial expansion. Spain opened trade routes across the oceans, specially the transatlantic
expedition of Christopher Columbus in 1492. The Crown of Spain also financed the first expedition
of world circumnavigation in 1521. The enterprise was led by Portuguese navigator Ferdinand
Magellan and completed by Spaniard Juan Sebastian Elcano. The trips of exploration led to trade
flourishing across the Atlantic Ocean between Spain and America and across the Pacific Ocean
between Asia-Pacific and Mexico via the Philippines.
The compass, a cross-staff or astrolabe, a method to correct for the altitude of Polaris and
rudimentary nautical charts were all the tools available to a navigator at the time of Christopher
Columbus.[18] In his notes on Ptolemy's geography, Johannes Werner of Nurenberg wrote in 1514
that the cross-staff was a very ancient instrument, but was only beginning to be used on ships.[24]
25 Almagià, discussing the copy of another map by Fra Mauro, in the Vatican Library: Roberto Almagià, Monumenta cartographica vaticana, (Rome 1944) I:32-40.26 Kenneth Maxwell, Naked tropics: essays on empire and other rogues, p. 16, Routledge, 2003, ISBN 0-415-94577-1
octant in 1757 in order to provide for the lunar distance method. With the lunar distance method,
mariners could determine their longitude accurately. Once chronometer production was established
in the late 18th century, the use of the chronometer for accurate determination of longitude was a
viable alternative.[31] Chronometers replaced lunars in wide usage by the late 19th century.[27]
In 1891, radios, in the form of wireless telegraphs, began to appear on ships at sea.[33]
Steam was first applied to boats in the 1770s. With the advent of economical steam engines,
efficient external combustion heat engines that makes use of the heat energy that exists in steam and
converting it to mechanical work, the prime mover was steam for ships. The technology only
became relevant to trans-oceanic travel after 1815, the year Pierre Andriel crossed the English
Channel aboard the steam ship Élise.
A steamboat, sometimes called a steamer, became the primary method of propulsion is the age of
steam power, typically driving a propeller or paddlewheel. Small and large steamboats and
riverboats worked on lakes and rivers. Steamships gradually replaced sailing ships for commercial
shipping through the 19th century. From 1815 on, steamships increased significantly in speed and
size.
Ironclads are steam-propelled warships of the later 19th century, protected by iron or steel
armor plates. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to
explosive or incendiary shells. The first ironclad battleship, La Gloire, was launched by the French
Navy in 1859; she prompted the British Royal Navy to start building ironclads. After the first
clashes of ironclads took place during the American Civil War, it became clear that the ironclad had
replaced the unarmored line-of-battle ship as the most powerful warship afloat.
In 1899, the R.F. Matthews was the first ship to use wireless communication to request
assistance at sea.[33] The idea of using radio for determining direction was investigated by "Sir
Oliver Lodge, of England; Andre Blondel, of France; De Forest, Pickard; and Stone, of the United
States; and Bellini and Tosi, of Italy."[34] The Stone Radio & Telegraph Company installed an early
prototype radio direction finder on the naval collier Lebanon in 1906.[34]
By 1904, time signals were being sent to ships to allow navigators to routinely check their
chronometers for error.[35] The U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office was sending navigational warnings
to ships at sea by 1907.[35]
In the 20th century, the internal combustion engine and gas turbine came to replace the
steam engine in most ship applications. Trans-oceanic travel, transatlantic and transpacific, was a
33 a b "Short History of Radio" (PDF). fcc.gov. http://www.fcc.gov/omd/history/radio/documents/short_history.pdf. Retrieved 2007-04-22.34 a b Howeth, Captain Linwood S. (1963). "XXII". History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Ships and Office of Naval History. pp. 261–265. http://earlyradiohistory.us/1963hw22.htm.
particularly important application, with steam powered Ocean liners replacing sailing ships, then
culminating in the massive Superliners which included the RMS Titanic. The event with the Titanic
lead to the Maritime Distress Safety System.
Later developments included the placing of lighthouses and buoys close to shore to act as
marine signposts identifying ambiguous features, highlighting hazards and pointing to safe channels
for ships approaching some part of a coast after a long sea voyage. In 1912 Nils Gustaf Dalén was
awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his invention of automatic valves designed to be used in
combination with gas accumulators in lighthouses[36]
1921 saw the installation of the first radiobeacon.[35]
The first prototype shipborne radar system was installed on the USS Leary in April 1937.[37]
On November 18, 1940 Mr. Alfred L. Loomis made the initial suggestion for an electronic
air navigation system which was later developed into LORAN (long range navigation system) by
the Radiation Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,[38] and on November 1, 1942
the first LORAN System was placed in operation with four stations between the Chesapeake Capes
and Nova Scotia.[38]
In October 1957, the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik.[39]
Scientists at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory took a series of measurements
of Sputnik's doppler shift yielding the satellite's position and velocity.[39] This team continued to
monitor Sputnik and the next satellites into space, Sputnik II and Explorer I. In March 1958 the idea
of working backwards, using known satellite orbits to determine an unknown position on the Earth's
surface began to be explored.[39] This led to the TRANSIT satellite navigation system.[39] The first
TRANSIT satellite was placed in polar orbit in 1960.[39] The system, consisting of 7 satellites, was
made operational in 1962.[39] A navigator using readings from three satellites could expect accuracy
of about 80 feet.[39]
On July 14, 1974 the first prototype Navstar GPS satellite was put into orbit, but its clocks
failed shortly after launch.[39] The Navigational Technology Satellite 2, redesigned with caesium
clocks, started to go into orbit on June 23, 1977. [39] By 1985, the first 11-satellite GPS Block I
constellation was in orbit.[39]
36 "Gustav Dalén, The Nobel Prize in Physics 1912: Biography.". nobelprize.org. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1912/dalen-bio.html. Retrieved 2007-04-17.37 Howeth, Captain Linwood S. (1963). "XXXVIII". History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Ships and Office of Naval History. pp. 443–469. http://earlyradiohistory.us/1963hw38.htm.38 Howeth, Captain Linwood S. (1963). "Appendix A. Chronology of Developments in Communications and Electronics". History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Ships and Office of Naval History. pp. 443–469. http://earlyradiohistory.us/1963hwa.htm.39 Bedwell, Don (2007). "Where Am I?". American Heritage Magazine 22 (4). http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2007/4/2007_4_20.shtml. Retrieved 2007-04-20.
Satellites of the similar Russian GLONASS system began to be put into orbit in 1982, and
the system is expected to have a complete 24-satellite constellation in place by 2010.[39] The
European Space Agency expects to have its Galileo with 30 satellites in place by 2011/12 as well.[39]
Since the turn of the millennium, the construction of stealth ships have occurred. These are
ships which employs stealth technology construction techniques in an effort to ensure that it is
harder to detect by one or more of radar, visual, sonar, and infrared methods. These techniques
borrow from stealth aircraft technology, although some aspects such as wake reduction are unique
to stealth ships' design.
Some of the major social changes of this period include women becoming admirals in defensive
navies, being allowed to work on submarines, and being appointed captains of cruise ships. On
Cunard, Royal Caribbean and P&O they include Liz Lauritzen, Karin Stahre-Janson, Inger Olsen
and Sarah Breton.
The growth of cruise ship crime - including murder, rape, theft and passengers disappearing
overboard - has brought a new focus on ships of sites of aberrant social activity.
Integrated bridge systems
Electronic integrated bridge concepts are driving future navigation system planning.[40]
Integrated systems take inputs from various ship sensors, electronically display positioning information, and provide control signals required to maintain a vessel on a preset course.[40] The navigator becomes a system manager, choosing system presets, interpreting system output, and monitoring vessel response.[40]
2.2. Greek shipping
Greece is a maritime nation by tradition, as shipping is arguably the oldest form of
occupation of the Greeks and has been a key element of Greek economic activity since ancient
times.
2.2.1. Classical period
The Greeks have been a maritime nation since the times of ancient Greece, as the
mountainous landscape of the mainland, the limited farming area and the extended coastline of
Greece led people to occupy with shipping. The geographical position of the region on the
crossroads of ancient sea lanes in the eastern Mediterranean, the multiplicity of islands and the
proximity to other advanced civilizations helped shape the maritime nature of the Greek nation at an
early stage. Thus, the Greeks soon came to dominate the maritime trade in the region, gradually
expanding it along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea, and establishing
colonies. A large part of the sea trade of the Roman Empire was carried out by the Greeks in the
schools and libraries. The three most important schools-cum-colleges in the Greek world on the eve
of the War of Independence were situated in Smyrna, Chios, and Ayvalik (on the coast of Asia
Minor opposite the island of Lesbós), all three major centres of Greek commerce.[41]
In the wake of the nineteenth century diaspora the Chiot families were well positioned to
take advantage of the commercial opportunities across Europe after the Napoleonic Wars. Families
such as the Rallis were already established in Marseille and London. They established a network of
shipping specialists across all of the major ports in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Gaining a seat
on the Baltic Exchange, Ralli brothers were able to introduce shippers and agents to reliable sources
of funding and through Lloyds of London, to reliable insurance. Uniquely, this enabled them
finance their fleets with the ships acting as security, a practice that was illegal in Greece. In some
parts of the world these fleets were Greek-owned, but in Britain they were almost exclusively
chartered by London Greeks flying under the British Flag. The major shipping companies were then
owned by Papayanni, Spartali and Schilizzi, while the Rodocanachi family became pre-eminent
traders in their cargoes.
Accompanying these Greek-run fleets were local expatriate communities of workmen and
agent-translators who managed the unfamiliar customs and bureaucracy in foreign ports. In these
times before the telegraph, this network gave the Greek shippers advance warning of events and
allowed them to control news and prices in advance of their competitors.[42]
The financial crisis of the 1860s saw some of these businesses collapse[343]. Nonetheless, the
tradition of endowment continued, and it was shipping that funded institutions such as the National
Library of Greece.
These changes heralded a move by some of the Chios families out of shipping and into
financing or broking, allowing Ionian-descended families to establish their own networks and
shipping dynasties, most notably the Vaglianos, Ziffa and Sechiari, with funding routed from the
London financial markets.
2.2.4. Twentieth century
Many changes and upheavals affected their markets: the Russian Revolution, the collapse of
the Ottoman Empire and restrictions in Egypt that closed their markets to foreigners. The Greek
grain merchants in London and Odessa lost access to their traditional grain suppliers and markets
and, rather than close, they seized the chance to invest in merchant fleets of steamships, and
specialized in tramp shipping.
41 Encyclopædia Britannica, history of Greece, Merchant middle class, 2008, O. Ed.42 A history of Greek-owned shipping, by Gelina Harlaftis43 Depredations: Overend, Gurney & Co and the Greek and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, by 'Stefanos Xenos' (1869)
The Second World War saw those Greek shipping companies operating in the Allied areas place
their fleets under control of the British Merchant Marine, and suffer the same depredations and
difficulties.
References Bowditch, Nathaniel (2002). The American Practical Navigator. Bethesda, MD: National Imagery and
Mapping Agency. ISBN 0-939837-54-4. http://www.irbs.com/bowditch/.
Cutler, Thomas J. (December 2003). Dutton's Nautical Navigation (15th ed.). Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-55750-248-3.
Department of the Air Force (March 2001) (PDF). Air Navigation. Department of the Air Force. http://www.e-publishing.af.mil/pubfiles/af/11/afpam11-216/afpam11-216.pdf. Retrieved 2007-04-17.
Great Britain Ministry of Defence (Navy) (1995). Admiralty Manual of Seamanship. The Stationery Office. ISBN 0-11-772696-6.
Maloney, Elbert S. (December 2003). Chapman Piloting and Seamanship (64th ed.). New York, NY: Hearst Communications Inc.. ISBN 1-58816-089-0.
National Imagery and Mapping Agency (2001) (PDF). Publication 1310: Radar Navigation and Maneuvering Board Manual (7th ed.). Bethesda, MD: U.S. Government Printing Office. http://www.nga.mil/portal/site/maritime/.
Bilic, Tomislav (March 2009). "The Myth of Alpheus and Arethusa and Open-Sea Voyages on the Mediterranean--Stellar Navigation in Antiquity". International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 38 (1): 116–132. doi:10.1111/j.1095-9270.2008.00189.x.
Bloomberg, Mary; Göran Henricksson (1997). "Evidence for the Minoan origins of stellar navigation in the Aegean". Actes de la Vème conférence annuelle de la SEAC. Gdansk. pp. 69–81.
Taylor, E. G. R. (1971) link ed. The haven-finding art; A History of Navigation from Odysseus to Captain Cook New York: American Elsevier Publishing Company, INC.
Homer. link ed. The Odyssey , Book V. History of Greek shipping Greek freighter DIAMANTIS, sunk on 03 October 1939 by German U-Boat U-35 Historic house flags of Greek shipping companies George Bitros and Ioanna Minoglou: Entrepreneurship and market order: Some historical evidence [1]
Munich University Personal RePEc Archive
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_navigation&oldid=493719467" http:// www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_madeinchina/2005-06/21/content_69874.htm
See also History of Merchant shipping on www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjUKm6MBIww